Story:Star Trek: Prometheus/Rightful Destiny/Chapter 7
Back to Chapter 6 SEVEN The next morning as the Prometheus cruised along at warp eight, Logan sat astride a horse wearing a kilt, leather armour, and blue war paint in front of an army of similarly clad holographic Scots. Across the field from the Scots was an English army belonging Edward the Long Shanks, the notorious king of England. “Sons of Scotland, I am William Wallace.” Logan said loudly to be heard over the din of the army of Scots. “William Wallace is seven feet tall!” A young man said as he stepped forward. “Aye, I’ve heard.” Logan said with a chuckle in his voice as steered his horse through a oblong pace, “Kills men by the hundreds, and if he were here he’d consume the English with fireballs from his eyes…and bolts of lightning from his arse.” Hearing his joke the gathered Scots forgot about their fear for a moment and laughed before Logan continued on. “I AM William Wallace,” Logan proclaimed boldly, “and I see a whole army of my countrymen here in defiance of tyranny. You’ve come to fight as free men and free men you are. What will you with that freedom? Will you fight?” Shouts of ‘No!’ rose up from the crowd as another man stepped forward and spoke. “Fight against that, No! We will run and we will live.” “Aye,” Logan responded truthfully, “fight and you may die. Run and you will live…at least a while. And dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives but they may never take our freedom!” Logan’s passionate speech caused cries of support to come forth, in droves, from the Scots just as Solen’s voice came from nowhere. Even if they had heard Solen above the din of their cries the Scots wouldn’t have been fazed by a disembodied voice because of the perceptual filters that were build into their programs. “Bridge to Captain.” Solen’s voice said coming out of thin air. “Computer pause program.” Logan said, “Go ahead Solen.” “Sorry to interrupt your program however you have an alpha priority communication from admiral Nechayev.” “Route it here.” Logan said as he climbed off the horse and straitened his leather armour. “Aye, sir. Bridge out.” “Computer. Arch.” Logan said. When the arch appeared Logan walked over to it straightened his armour once more and tapped the screen. The screen displayed: INCOMING TRANSMISSION STARFLEET COMMAND Stardate 54975.53 Transmission number SB209-2378-984228 Priority: Alpha To: Captain L. MacLeod - U.S.S. Prometheus From: Admiral A. Nechayev - Starbase 209 Seconds later the screen went black and then clicked back to life with the image of admiral Alynna Nechayev sitting behind the desk in her office at Starbase 209. “Admiral Nechayev,” Logan said, “ ‘tis good to you again. I hope you’ll pardon my appearance. I was running a holo-novel.” “It’s good to see you to too, captain. And you’re pardoned.” Alynna said, “However this isn’t a social call. I have new orders for you.” “You mean we’re not to proceed with our survey of the Erebus dark matter nebula?” Logan asked. “Yes. We’ve heard rumours about a raider ship looting outposts. Unfortunately the rumours were confirmed when the Defiant responded to a distress call. The raiders are Kelvan, or at the very least using a Kelvan ship. Now we’ve received an automated distress call from the tritanium processing facility in the Alchemene system. Please take the Prometheus and investigate we have to put an end to this. I don’t need to tell you how vital tritanium alloy is to the SCE.” “Understood, admiral.” Logan said, “we’ll alter course right away.” “Very good. Nechayev out.” Alynna said before she closed the channel. When admiral Nechayev’s image disappeared it was replaced with: ENDING TRANSMISSION Transmission number SB209-2378-984228 Stardate 54975.53 Once the screen went black Logan tapped a series of buttons on the arch to open a ship-wide intercom channel. Once he released the last button the tree toned sound of a boatswain’s whistle sounded throughout the ship drawing the entire crew’s attention. “Chief Gunn, senior staff. Report to the conference room in ten minutes.” Logan’s disembodied voice said throughout the ship. Once he was finished making his announcement Logan closed the channel, ended the Scottish Rebellion holo-program and went to his quarters to change into his uniform as he ordered the computer to combine all the information it had on Kelvans into a report. As Logan walked into the rectangular conference room on deck one behind the bridge, now clad in his uniform, to wait for the Chief and his senior staff and sat down at the head of the rectangular, wood trimmed, table. “Just my luck.” Logan thought to himself, “I get to deal with Kelvan rabble-rousers. Damn Murphy’s law.” --- A few minutes later Joshua and Solen arrived and sat on either side of Logan as Durgan walked in and went to sit next to Solen. As Durgan sat down Garav, Gliecy, and Jon arrived and sat next to the Chief, Durgan and Garav respectively. Minutes later T’Wan and Atana arrived and sat down next to Gliecy. “Good,” Logan said, “now that everyone is here we can begin. Ten minutes ago admiral Nechayev gave me our new orders. We’ve been ordered to investigate a distress call from the tritanium refinery in the Alchemene system that Starbase 209 received. It may not be connected but there has been recently been instances of raids on our tritanium refinery and deuterium collector facilities, at least one of which was by Kelvans. We are to investigate any possible connection and put an end to these raids.” “The Kelvans!” Joshua said in disbelief, “Oh great! Why do we get the tough assignments?” “Murphy’s Law. But ours is nae to question why.” Logan said, “Ours is merely to do as the high and mighty brass command. At least its nae the Borg we’re having to deal with. Anyway I’ve had the computer compile a report on the Kelvans, so we’ll have an idea what we’re up against.” “A question, sir.” Solen asked, “I am not familiar with any legislation known as ‘Murphy’s Law’. What does it have to with our being assigned to investigate these raids.” “Check the socio-cultural database on human sayings.” Logan said with a straight face that he barely managed to maintain. Unlike Jon and Joshua who were grinning from ear to ear. “Understood, sir. Will the database also explain the meaning of the human phrase ‘Que sera sera’. Humans do seem to think it explains everything but seem to be quite reluctant to define the saying or even allude to its meaning.” “It might...what ever will be will be” Logan said no longer able to suppress his grin as he reached out and tapped a control on the desk top that would make the computer begin its recitation of its newly compiled report as he was truly glad that they were not having to deal with the Borg, especially since the entire captaincy and admiralty of Starfleet had been on edge since the holo-strike and Borg assimilation plague, which Starfleet covered up with a story about an outbreak of Xakarian influenza, following Voyager’s return to the alpha quadrant a few months earlier. Seconds later the computer began: “On Stardate 4657.5, the starship Enterprise, under the command of Captain Kirk, was on patrol when they received a distress call originating from the uninhabited M-class world of Nalogen four. On the surface of the planet of the away team encountered a group of six individuals, who identified themselves as Kelvans from the Andromeda galaxy, who were able to hijack the Enterprise. Captain Kirk and his senior staff managed to regain control of the Enterprise by forcing the Kelvans to realize that they and their descendents would have to maintain human form for the entire voyage back to the Andromeda galaxy and that their descendents would not be accepted in Kelvan society. Realizing this, the Kelvan commander Rojan, turned control of the Enterprise to Captain Kirk. The Federation Council granted the Kelvans permission to colonize Nalogen four and ordered that three drone ships be sent to the Andromeda galaxy to inform the Kelvan Empire that they could send ships to the Milky Way providing they came in peace to join the colony on Nalogen four. Shortly after the colony’s founding and the launch of the robot ships a fleet of Kelvan inter-galactic colony ships arrived in the Milky Way and were accepted into the Kelvan colony. Due to a series of incidents the Kelvan colonial government has adopted a policy of reduced contact with other species. If contact must be made with the Kelvan government it should be known that, while favouring isolationism, the colonial government does prefer peaceful relations with the Federation when contact does occur.” “Any questions?” Logan asked once the computer finished its report. When there were none he continued on. “I do not have a question, but more of a logical deduction.” Solen said, “It would be logical to assume that the Kelvans are not raiding Federation facilities to merely be an annoyance. They are gathering supplies for something. Given the nature of their actions and what they are stealing it would be logical to assume that they are constructing a space-born, most likely warp capable, weapons platform.” “I would have to agree with that.” Logan said, “Mister Sulu alter course for the Alchemene system. Mister Rimosi make sure all offensive and defensive systems are operational. Everyone take your stations please.” With that they all filed out of the conference room and headed for the bridge, with the exception of Durgan, Atana, and the Chief. When Logan and the others walked onto the bridge they relieved the officers that had been manning them during the meeting. Several hours later, after the end of the duty shift, Logan walked from the men’s change room into the small ship’s gymnasium, on deck three next to the holodeck, wearing muscle shirt and shorts of the men’s version of the standard issue work-out clothes and headed for the nearest treadmill. Fifteen minutes later, after Logan had climbed off the treadmill and sat down on a bench, Atana walked in wearing the form hugging female version of the work-out clothes and sat down next to him. “Permission to speak freely?” Atana requested after a moment of silence. “Granted, lass.” Logan said, “We’re nae on duty though so you dinnae need to be so formal.” “I don’t know how say this subtly so I’ll just come out and say it. Over the past few months I’ve noticed that you’ve been paying increased attention to me,” Atana said, “I appreciate it. I’ve also noticed how you look at me when you think that I’m not paying attention. So what I was wanting to say is that if you want to change the nature of our relationship I wouldn’t be opposed.” “You…?” Logan trailed off. “If you want, I am willing...” Atana said nervously, hoping she hadn’t misread Logan’s attention and hoping that she wouldn’t be rejected. After a moment of silence she continued, “Well?” “Lass, I think that you’d better be calling me Logan.” Forward to Chapter 8